Continuing to Settle In

The weather turned again, but the day before it did, I took advantage and spent some time down at the river painting. I hadn’t painted en plein air for awhile, so I was a bit rusty. This is one of three little 5×7 paintings I did, and it’s the only one worth showing. But it was nice to be outside, doing what I most enjoy doing.

The RV park has a few walking trails, and I did a little exploring. This is a view of the riverbed around the bend from where I had been painting. I’m anxious to get back down there and see what it looks like from the river bank.

Setting things up for a long term stay takes a bit more work. While Nell did housecleaning, I worked outside. We had picked up a couple of new water filters (the blue thing at the right of the photo), and it was time to replace the old one. The short version of this story is that when I replaced the filter, I had leaks and the old pressure gauge didn’t work anymore. We made two trips into town over two days and finally bought a new gauge. But I wasn’t paying attention and only got a gauge and not a pressure regulator. As it turned out, the park office has a small assortment of supplies, including exactly the kind of regulator the park owner recommends. Price: $15. So we will return the $28 gauge we bought at an RV dealer in Georgetown. Once I got the new regulator installed in the line, we have no leaks or drips and we are now compliant with the park rules. Have I mentioned that my talents as a handyman are somewhat limited?

When we bought the small pyramid jacks, they came four in the box. I had already installed two of them behind the wheels a week or so ago. While taking advantage of another few days of nice weather, I installed the second set in front of the wheels. We had gotten a couple of 2x8s cut into blocks, and I used them with only a couple of the orange Lynx plastic blocks under each jack.

I also got the front tripod installed and tightened. There is still some tweaking necessary to get the movement inside the trailer down to the bare minimum, but it’s much better now. Since we’re on gravel and not concrete, I’ll have to make adjustments from time to time to keep things solid.

Organization is an ongoing thing right now. The photo above is the pass-through basement, seen from the “curb” side of the fifth wheel. Almost all of our art show equipment is accessible from this side. The car can be backed up next to this door, and things can be moved between storage and car without having to carry things very far. I’ve kept tools and other things that are used fairly often inside this door as well.

The “street” side of the basement storage area looks a bit more disorganized, but it’s still a work in progress. The purple items are two completely empty flat tubs, and those along with a third one will be replaced by other items. This side holds a miscellaneous assortment of things that are either seldom used or are used on this side of the rig (plumbing and electrical items, primarily. There are still some things to be rearranged either from inside or from the big tubs on the patio that might make more sense being stored in this space.

We bought some flexible residential duct hose at Loew’s, and I’ve hung it from the aluminum structural pieces that run along the top of this space (supporting the floor inside the RV). The flex hose holds fishing rods, with the weight of the reels being held up with small bungee cords. The wood strip that runs through the flex is held in place by Velcro. I’ll make this a neater installation eventually, but for now, it gets the rods up out of the way. The tow bar for the Honda sits on the basement floor along the wall on the left above. It’s got odd-shaped attachments, which accounts for the French easel and other items resting at an angle. I may eventually box the tow bar in, to make a neater arrangement.

The organization will continue. There are a lot of art-related items that need to be relocated where they are still accessible, and to allow for better placement of other items. There are also “garage” type items in the tubs outside that need to be better organized so they can be found, and there are camping/travel items that have to be stored until we can get a small travel rig.

We’re getting there. I may do some more of those organization things today, but it’s supposed to be another beautiful day here in central Texas, so I may carry some sketching materials and a chair down to the river and take advantage of the weather.

Welcome!

Our odyssey began on an RV sales lot in January 2011. From there, we turned a twenty year dream into reality, living and travelling in a self-contained motorhome for three years. This is an account of that life. Today, we travel less, but still, the siren call of the road is loud and strong.